About

After leaving the computer industry in the mid 80's artist & owner Carola Grimm started a children's clothing business (Critters) featuring hand painted designs. Her sister Ileana Grimm was just starting her famous Grimm T-shirt company featuring her original humorous designs and they shared a large booth together at the One Of A Kind Show where they became one of the top sellers for over 12 years. When it was time for something new Ileana branched off to sell her products wholesale all over North America and Carola moved to Port Carling to open 'Grimm and Critters' which brought a selection of Canadian hand made craft to Muskoka.

The little shop in Port Carling was 300 square feet and very quickly became too small. 3 years later a new building was being built called Wallis Mill on the site of the old mill backing onto river in Port Carling. The business moved into the new building taking a 600 square foot space. The extra space now allowed for fine art to be added to the mix and thus the name was changed to Grimm & Co. The demands of running the busy shop meant that Crittiers children's clothing would be wound down.

Carola then started to showcase her own paintings, folk art and sculpture along with the works of about 30 artists. 3 years later a larger space became necessary and when a 1200 square foot space next door became available the move was made. Since this space would allow for a much bigger fine art selection it was decided that a new name was in order and so Red Canoe Gallery was born. The gallery featured the fine art and fine craft of up to 60 artists a year including the large wildlife paintings of her then partner Paul Garbett and her sister Ileana's original paintings.

The business was very successful but as Carola's own paintings and sculpture became larger and the demand for larger paintings overall increased she began the search for a venue better suited to the presentation of fine art and also needed a location that offered it's own customer parking. And after 4 years of searching Red Canoe Gallery was able to secure a great new location, and in October of 2023 moved into its new home in the lovely village of Bala..........where the story happily continues today.

Carola Grimm
Artist/owner